The sun shone into my studio yesterday. Pure joy.
They sent a copy of the magazine. Usually they only send me one when I have a review in it. Was it a peace offering, on account of their being so tardy with the payment of my invoices? A nice gesture whatever the reason. I read it at work. So many exquisitely small things. Why do I still get so unsettled by other people’s talent? I need a ballast. I need to steady myself. And then the voice came through, not loud but gentle and clear. This is what I do, it said. That is what they do, this is what I do. Yes. It is like beauty. Another’s beauty can seem so overwhelming perfect, so beyond ourselves. But that is their beauty, what about ours? What about mine? We each have it. We each have some kind of beauty. Something unique, intrinsically ourselves. It could be the smell of our skin, the thickness of our hair, the roundness of our hips, the narrowness of our ankles. There is something. It just needs to be found, seen and celebrated. This isn’t some new-age claptrap promulgated by Kate in The Archers. I mean it. I believe it. I look for it often. In others. Why not myself?
What shall we do about the film? he asked. Scrap it? I said. Yes. he said. Let’s send it back. So we did. I don’t like giving up on things but it was terrible. Perhaps we are the wrong age-group. None of the characters meant anything to me. And the inconsistency of accents – where they Danish or American? – made it all rather ridiculous. I’m not comfortable watching something for the sake of it. Is it a good thing to end on a bad one?
I need my sleep, I always have. I have to find some of the hours during the day. To make up the eight. I rarely do, make up the eight. Seven and a half is the most I can manage. But I am productive. The second load of ironing was done before breakfast, as was the bed change. I like the order. I like to run our home with order. But the voices niggle. I shouldn’t be so fastidious, if I was a proper artist, blah, blah….All those myths about disorder equalling creativity. I swallowed them, hook, line and sinker.
Two boats I missed in the roll call yesterday, Perseverance and Miss Me. Miss Me has been there for months. For a while it had a for sale sign, spelt ‘fore sail’. A little joke. A mariner’s play on words. Just like ‘baited breath’. How we laughed. Rather like The Independent’s daily crossword. Ah…. he says, every time. Miss Me is in a shabby state. Is it a question or a plea? It’s paint is peeling, it’s colour almost gone.
The marina boats’ rigging flapping in the wind sounded like cow bells. A remembered sound from the early 1990s when I visited Oberlangenhard in Switzerland. Clang, clang.
The dinghies have been lined up, up-ended like sponge fingers in a tiramisu.
A girl crouched in the road, reading her mobile phone.
A day in which to work. That is good. I need it. So many ideas, so many projects. And now I am wobbled again by an advertisement for a freelance job. Shall I apply? I don’t know. The steady money would be nice. I just don’t know. I cleave to this freedom and yet, there is so much fear. Ever thus, my love. Ever thus.
My feet were cold last night. It kept me awake. Still dark at seven. Still dark.
